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New computer chips from Snapdragon
Snapdragon has officially thrown its hat in the computer processors arena. They are launching a laptop chip called Snapdragon X Elite, like Apple Silicon this one is ARM based but for Microsoft Windows and I am assuming Linux as well. It promises a huge leap in battery performance similar to Apple Silicon’s battery prowess. The chips is also plenty powerful with 12 cores and speeds up to 4.3 GHz, it also has a GPU built in and a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) for quick AI operations. It will support up to 64GBs of memory. There are no indications that these chips will be coming to desktops as well. That said, if you are planning to buy a laptop, definitely wait.
Rise of AI
Artificial Intelligence is now everywhere even in our computers. The ability to run some of the models offline and not on the cloud will be very advantages to computers in the near future. Intel has already adding some new chips to their current laptop lineup. These chips are unique because they have an NPU (Neural Processing Unit). A built in NPU that can run deployed AI projects fairly fast and offline which is impressive. Others chip manufacturers have similar roadmaps. To accommodate AI, there will be a change in the amount of compute power we will need in the near future.
Changing power requirements
With all the new hardware updates coming out this year, you might need to check if your power supply is up to the task of supporting the next generation GPUs or even the beefed-up CPUs. We already need a beefy power supply for the current gen GPUs. As they need a special power connector, these might get carried forward to the RTX 5000 series, but we don’t know if it will need one or two of those. Most power supplies today don’t have more than one connector.
AMD Zen 5 Architecture
AMD has Zen 5 coming out this year and with it new chips. If you plan a new machine, you might want to consider the newer chips based on new architecture. However, at least with AMD, you can still buy a new computer as long as the motherboard uses the AM5 socket. This socket with a bios update should work with the Zen 5 chip and with the current Zen 4 chips.
New GPUs from Nvidia
Nvidia is launching the RTX 5000 series GPUs sometime this year. Some leaks indicate that the performance will get a significant boost over the current generation of graphic cards. Considering how focused Nvidia is on AI there might be some AI features thrown in for even more performance boost. The new card will come with some hefty power requirements and will require a huge cash injection. Some suggest the card will cost upwards of $2,000. This means a PC that is made to accommodate this next gen card will need significant tweaks.
Windows 12
Microsoft is also updating its OS and we will soon be hearing about Windows 12. It isn’t clear if the OS will be a free upgrade for current users but it will have a lot of AI additions as the company is going all in with Artificial Intelligence. The rumoured launch is around September this year, however no official announcement has been made. Microsoft is already creeping in a bunch of AI updates to Windows 11 using their Copilot brand. The problem here is if Microsoft decides to have strict hardware upgrades like the ones they have in place for Windows 11 then some PCs might be left behind with the new OS.
Intel Socket Change
Intel is currently manufacturing its last chips for the LGA 1700 socket. While this may sound like goobly gob nonsense to most normal users, it is a significant event. It means all current generation of motherboards will no longer support the coming generation of chips. This will result in requiring a motherboard change if you decide to upgrade your machine in the future. Intel will drop some new chips in to go with the new socket called LGA 1851 so you might want to wait for that to happen before buying a new computer.
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